Hey, remember that fat, oafish, obnoxious filmmaker Michael Moore who makes liberal fantasy propaganda pieces but labels them documentaries? You might not; he hasn’t had a noteworthy film in over a decade. But ABC’s Scandal is trying to relive his glory days by bringing back one of the many, many, many debunked claims and conspiracy theories in his infamous 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11. In this case, it’s the ridiculous claim that President Bush went to war in Afghanistan so his friends in the energy industry could build a Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline and become rich off of it.
In the Scandal episode “The Miseducation of Susan Ross,” the pipeline in Afghanistan is real. Not only that, but Vice President Susan Ross’ (Heidi Swedberg) soldier husband is killed protecting a pipeline that only exists to make billionaire oilmen even richer. She tells the story when she is asked during a Republican presidential debate, "Do you agree with Mrs. Grant's assessment that women are not their husbands' keepers, or do you think she should be held accountable for her [cheating] husband's decisions?"
Susan: My husband, John, served in the U.S. Army. He was a lieutenant in the 116th Infantry Brigade, served all over the world, including Afghanistan, where his platoon was tasked with the rather onerous job of patrolling a 20-mile stretch of desert along the Kandahar-Herat highway. He called me one night while he was over there, and when he told me what their assignment was, I said, "Well, what is it about this 20-mile stretch of desert that's so important to our country? Is it a village that needs protecting from the Taliban, a prison where we're holding terrorists?" "No," he says. "It's a pipeline." A pipeline that the Afghani government, in exchange for billions of dollars, was allowing American companies to build on its land. One of those companies -- Doyle Energy.
Doyle:[ Laughs ] Okay. This –
Susan: I'm talking now. Hearing my husband say that, it made my blood boil. Here he was, putting his life at risk so American businessmen could line their pockets. I wanted to say something, voice my rage, tell my husband to get the hell out of there, but I didn't. I bit my tongue, because we are not our husbands' keepers.
14 hours later, a Taliban sniper put a bullet through my husband's neck, severed his carotid artery, killed him almost instantly. I didn't blame the shooter. I didn't even blame the government or the energy companies. I blamed myself. I had an opinion, and I didn't voice it. I kept my mouth shut, and I swore that day that I would never again be silent. I became a United States Senator, I became the Vice President of the United States of America, and I plan to become the President of the United States, because no, we are not our husbands' keepers, but maybe we should be America's.
A very touching story, that has absolutely no basis in reality. Beyond the fictitious pipeline, we’re supposed to believe that her husband was allowed to give her that level of detail about his patrol? And that she could have some kind of say over what he was doing over there? What in the world would she have said if she hadn’t “kept [her] mouth shut” that would have made a difference? Unfortunately, family members don’t have a say in where their loved ones are sent, what they do, and when they get to go home.
Oh, and by the way, "John" wasn’t really her husband, it turns out they never got married and the child she claimed was his was another man's. So the craziness of the pipeline fits right in with the rest of the episode's twisted storylines.
It's telling that the only way Michael Moore's fantasy of an evil American conspiracy to build a pipeline in Afghanistan could come true was for it to be made in Hollywood.
